Trump’s ‘Phase Two’ for North Korea Means War

Trump made another not-so-veiled threat against North Korea yesterday:

Speaking at a news conference with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Trump made apparent reference to military options his administration has repeatedly said remain on the table.

“If the sanctions don’t work, we’ll have to go phase two,” Trump said. “Phase two may be a very rough thing, may be very, very unfortunate for the world. But hopefully the sanctions will work.”

We have no reason to expect sanctions to “work,” because sanctions usually don’t work and because it is now extremely unlikely that North Korea will agree to denuclearization under any circumstances. Referring to a “phase two” that is “very rough” and “very unfortunate for the world” is an obvious threat to attack, and that is how it will be received. That will just convince the North Korean leadership that it must never give up its nuclear weapons and missiles, and it will encourage them to continue developing both as quickly as possible.

The Trump administration persists in using punitive measures and threats, but these are the very things that have consistently failed to change North Korean behavior for the better and have usually pushed them in the direction that Washington doesn’t want them to go. At the same, they rule out the one thing–real diplomatic engagement–that has produced significant positive results in the past. When the Bush administration blew up the Agreed Framework, they sabotaged the one thing that had been at least partly successful in getting North Korea to limit its nuclear program. Ever since then, North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile programs have steadily advanced amid international condemnation, sanctions, and threats of attack. We already know that the “maximum pressure” campaign will fail because it is simply intensifying a punitive approach that has been repeatedly tried and found wanting.

When sanctions fail again (and we should take for granted that they will), the U.S. has to pursue diplomatic engagement seriously and it needs to change the goal of its policy. Denuclearization isn’t happening, and demanding it kills any chance of making progress in getting North Korea to agree to limits on its arsenal and its testing. Threatening to use force is folly, and actually using force in this case is insane. If the U.S. is to have any success in negotiating with North Korea, it needs to shelve all proposals for a military attack and it has to be willing to accept a compromise on this issue. Otherwise, the U.S. is headed down a very dangerous path to starting a war that isn’t necessary and could be easily avoided.

Nice thoughts, but in reality, this is an existential moment for the Empire. Denuclearization must be the only criteria for peace negotiations because America cannot be held hostage by the smallest and poorest country on earth. Not only will that new status quo destroy the 70-year Imperial Project and its relationships with its client states, it will undermine and call into question the domestic “sacrifice” made by its citizens who traded social justice for world domination. Saving America from a fringe group of stateless, ragtag terrorists at the cost of trillions of dollars will look like a fool’s errand if it accepts the threat of nuclear eradication from a minor sovereign state.

Trump is merely an actor in these proceedings. The Military and Intelligence Establishment has determined that the good life enjoyed by the upper echelon of Americans who populate the major metropolitan regions of this country could vanish overnight. Elites are in the bull’s eye for a change and that makes this situation entirely different from the standpoint of negotiations. For the first in American history, they are the mouse in this cat and mouse game. Those in command have taken a vow that this will not stand on their watch. Nothing short of total annihilation of the threat will suffice in this instance.

North Korea already had a nuclear deal that was scrambled by the next US admin. I doubt they will make a new one, especially after looking at Iran. A treaty with the US govt has been proven to not be worth the paper it’s written on.

I think Jasan is onto something in mentioning Iran. US policy regarding N. Korea’s nuclear capacity has increasingly been at least as much about Iran as about N. Korea. One gets the feeling that a lot of what we do and say about N. Korea is pro forma, that we feel obliged to do it because to not do it would contrast too starkly with our Iran policy.

And the problem with our Iran policy is that it isn’t even “our” policy anymore. It’s driven by Israel and its many agents of influence here.

It’s obvious that we are no longer acting on any discernible principle. We have increasingly open contempt for international law, for international “norms” (from which we except ourselves, Israel, now the Saudis), and even classic American anti-proliferation doctrine, from which Israel, India, Pakistan and eventually others are apparently to be exempted, apparently, and to which in any case so many exceptions have been made that it has been effectively scrapped.

All that’s left now is this: we do to N. Korea what is consistent with the policy Israel wants us to take on Iran. We don’t even care much what the S. Koreans and Japanese have to say about it as we do what Israel and its American lobbyists want.

“Threatening to use force is folly, and actually using force in this case is insane.”

Only if the US is more callous and less committed to upholding peace than e.g. Russia, China or even North Korea…. but then….

“[T]he U.S. is headed down a very dangerous path to starting a war that isn’t necessary and could be easily avoided.”

We have seen this movie, and its remakes. It is hard to “trump” Iraq 2003 in this respect, but Trump is certainly trying hard.

I think that Trump shooting off his mouth is, as usual getting ahead of The Plan. Phase 2 of the escalation is a unilateral blockade of North Korea in anything but name, without UN cover and possibly over the objections of even allies like Japan. It will take a while to get there – just as it will take US Coast Guard cutters a while to approach close to North Korean territorial waters – but, Trump’s boundless impatience aside, there is a lot of potential for pretexts and incidents with North Korea, China, Russia, and anybody else who runs a flag on a commercial vessel through international waters near the peninsula. For those in the shadow cast by Trump that are steadily working towards this very desirable war – and the precedent of international acquiescence to another illegal invasion on the pretext of preventing and rolling back the proliferation of the only “weapons of mass destruction” that could constrain US impunity.

A nation that cannot repudiate and disavow a transgression against constitutional and international order such as Iraq 2003 cannot reasonably expect that another atrocities on an ever increasing scale will not follow.